The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-10-15
THE AMERICAN IDEA OF GOV
ERNMENT.

ERNMENT,
1t is fact that our naturaliZed cit
liens are voting better than we are will
ing to believe; and every vote they cast
puts the country on safer footing.
For the most potent factor in shaping
the dispositions of these newcomers,
and modifying their sentiments, is the
fundamental characteristic of Amer
lean life, which provides that every
man who comes here shall have Glib
erty with responsibility" This is the
great solvent which affects all these
congregating nationalities 1t is the
method prescribed by the fathers, which
has not yet outgrown it's usefulness,
because it is based upon a law as broad
as the race itself. No nation has ever
discovered so direct, so effectual, and,
on the whole, SO speedy way to make
men out Of the poor apologies for man.
hood that Europe is forever unloading
on our docks, as the American way.
The day in which it was decided to
put the ballot in the hands of every
adult citizen was a happy day for Amer
lea. 1t was a day WHICH planted us
strongly upon fundamental principle
Of human nature, viz, that the way to
beget trustworthiness is to impose a
trust. The quickest process by which
to develop political sagacity is to call
for its exercise. Hosea Biglow puts a
profound truth into his lines:
'sThe surest plan to make man
Is, think him so, J. B.,
Ez much ez you or me-"
States rest the more securely upon
their foundations in proportion as those
foundations are broadened to cover the
greatest number of classes and of indi-
viduals not because there is any par
ticular virtue or wisdom in numbers.
especially where large proportion of
those numbers bring no immediate
contribution to the aggregate, except
ignorance and prejudice but because
the best and quickest way to overcome
that ignorance and diminish that stu
pidity, is to make the man feel that they
lessen his own privileges and add to his
own taxes. Democracy is cooperative
politics; it makes every voter a part
ner in the States business, and con-
tributor to its profits or its losses; and
however inconvenient the process, it is
the most effective yet discovered for
dealing with the dangerous classes
dangerous on account of their ignorance
or discontent-an making them less
harmful. 1t is mistaken cry which
goes up to-day for restricted suffrage,
for property qualifications, for proba-
ton, before naturalization, for this con-
dition and for that. 1t is an unneces-
sary mistrust of the power of American
institutions to Americanize, and of the
discipline of responsibility.
1t is not just, to the trustworthy in
situations and influences of American
life, to ignore or to deprecate the actual
work they are doing in the real natural
ization of our alien populations. We
have planted ourselves upon great
principle, the highest ever reached by a
nation, to wit, that if a man is treated
like man he is likely to become a
man and if he does not, his son will.
We have resolved to try the experiment
of liberty under law, even upon the
law-oppressed and the lawless. So far
we have every reason for congratula-
ton. We are achieving wonderful
success and the only serious failures
of our system have come from too lax
and not from too rigorous enforce
ment of its principles. When the schol-
ar and the merchant fail to vote, while
the day-laborer and the bar-room loafer
are prompt at the polls, our system is
not fully applied. The ballot then is
oversparred and underballasted. The
analogy holds in other particulars let
the spirit of American institutions be
carried to its fullest extent; let the in
dividual feel his responsibility as cit
izen let his children be trained in the
common school let the churches have
free field and no favors let law be
sustained by the active efforts of the
best men and women in the community,
and America is in no more danger of
losing the institutions or the spirit of
the forefathers than she is of losing her
climate.-Rev. j. Coleman adams, in
the Forum for October.